Today Samsung announced the US availability and pricing of the Galaxy Note 10.1, nearly six months after they debuted it at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The 10-inch tablet will go on sale tomorrow and be priced at $499 for the 16 GB model and $549 for the 32 GB model. Retail partners include Amazon, Best Buy, Conn’s, Fry’s, Office Depot, Tiger Direct, and more.

Adobe has teamed up with Samsung to offer an optimized version of Adobe Photoshop Touch preinstalled, normally a $9.99 purchase. While using the S Pen, users are able to control brush size and opacity by just adjusting the pressure of the pen on the screen.

“Samsung’s GALAXY Note 10.1, with its pressure-sensitive S Pen, truly unleashes the power of Adobe Photoshop Touch and provides a great tool for creative expression,” said Winston Hendrickson, vice president products, Creative Media Solutions, Adobe. “More than ever, people around the world want to create, wherever and whenever inspiration strikes. We look forward to seeing what they imagine with the S Pen and Photoshop Touch.”

While the Galaxy Note 10.1 is a very intriguing device for artistic creators, we are not quite sure it is the “game-changing device” that Samsung thinks it is. In a world of $199 tablets, it might be hard for some to justify spending the extra $300 to use the S Pen.

Check out Samsung’s hands-on video below and let us know what you think. Is there place for the Galaxy Note 10.1 in your gadget collection?

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Taylor is the founder of Android and Me. He resides in Dallas and carries the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One as his daily devices. Ask him a question on Twitter or Google+ and he is likely to respond. | Ethics statement

I’ve been using! This is smaller that the actual full width of the phone. I believe the manufacturer did this purposely, because the sides of the GSIII taper off. Meaning if you have a screen protector that isn’t sticky enough on the sides the ends will start coming loose quickly (an extra 2mm would be nice though. This is big enough to protect the display of the phone though. I have been using it for over a week, and its great. I ordered 2 pack, and will reorder from this same seller if I ever need more screen protectors for my GSIII.

I agree. I’m surprised it costs so much. When I told my friend who was looking for a tablet his first response was “I’ll just get an iPad” As for what it can and cannot do, thats where apps come in. If Apple releases the new iPad mini for 200.00 as expected then this is a no brainer. The android tablet is at least 150.00 over priced especially when you consider that these things only last a couple of years before they’re outdated.

Even though Stock UI looks better visually, it can definitely use these advanced features from Samsung. If you could take these features and slap it on the feature Nexus phone and bigger Nexus tablet, and anything else that comes to mind by then when tech advances, you have a win regardless of what else comes out during or after.

I like this but there is absolutely no room in my gadget collection for this. My Ipad 2 is getting old. I will buy the Nexus 7 to finally give android tablets a fair chance. My original galaxy 7 sucked. If i like it i will choose between the surface(if its between $199-299), An Asus 10″ tablet (hopefully a Nexus 10) and the ipad 4.

Android Games has caught up ios games enough for me. The key will be the ability to: write and upload my articles to my website, do my research papers for school and stream good quality videos. I do this now from my ipad so i hope i could do it from the android tablets. The Surface should do it with no problem cuz it comes with microsoft office.

Google bought Quick Office a couple of months back. It will be interesting to see what comes out of that purchase down the road, as the current google docs (aka. Drive) is crap, and they really need to fill this void as Apple and the coming MS Surface tablet already have well built office style apps ready to go.

Excellent point! I totally forgot about that. I actually bought that for $20 on my iPad and then I caught it for free from Amazon’s App store for my phone. If if works as well on Android tablets, then I’m in business.

I agree at $350 it would have been a no brainer, but at the $499-549 price its too much even with the S-pen which I love (on my Galaxy Note). The display should have been higher (for a flagship device), lack of a micros-USB and the plastic feel.

I don’t know, I have the lenovo Thinkpad and its stylus is good, was hoping to go for this one, but now I’m not so sure.

Being an artist this would have been the perfect tablet, but Sam kinda hyped it up then let us down a bit, then again we expected too much, think they charging that much because it’s technically a wacom tablet merged with Android, but for wanting to compete with apple so much Idk why Samsung doesn’t push the limit of their devices with hardware and software instead with prices.

I’ve been using! This is smaller that the actual full width of the phone. I believe the manufacturer did this purposely, because the sides of the GSIII taper off. Meaning if you have a screen protector that isn’t sticky enough on the sides the ends will start coming loose quickly (an extra 2mm would be nice though. This is big enough to protect the display of the phone though. I have been using it for over a week, and its great. I ordered 2 pack, and will reorder from this same seller if I ever need more screen protectors for my GSIII.

I agree. I’m surprised it costs so much. When I told my friend who was looking for a tablet his first response was “I’ll just get an iPad” As for what it can and cannot do, thats where apps come in. If Apple releases the new iPad mini for 200.00 as expected then this is a no brainer. The android tablet is at least 150.00 over priced especially when you consider that these things only last a couple of years before they’re outdated.

Even though Stock UI looks better visually, it can definitely use these advanced features from Samsung. If you could take these features and slap it on the feature Nexus phone and bigger Nexus tablet, and anything else that comes to mind by then when tech advances, you have a win regardless of what else comes out during or after.

I like this but there is absolutely no room in my gadget collection for this. My Ipad 2 is getting old. I will buy the Nexus 7 to finally give android tablets a fair chance. My original galaxy 7 sucked. If i like it i will choose between the surface(if its between $199-299), An Asus 10″ tablet (hopefully a Nexus 10) and the ipad 4.

Android Games has caught up ios games enough for me. The key will be the ability to: write and upload my articles to my website, do my research papers for school and stream good quality videos. I do this now from my ipad so i hope i could do it from the android tablets. The Surface should do it with no problem cuz it comes with microsoft office.

Google bought Quick Office a couple of months back. It will be interesting to see what comes out of that purchase down the road, as the current google docs (aka. Drive) is crap, and they really need to fill this void as Apple and the coming MS Surface tablet already have well built office style apps ready to go.

Excellent point! I totally forgot about that. I actually bought that for $20 on my iPad and then I caught it for free from Amazon’s App store for my phone. If if works as well on Android tablets, then I’m in business.

I agree at $350 it would have been a no brainer, but at the $499-549 price its too much even with the S-pen which I love (on my Galaxy Note). The display should have been higher (for a flagship device), lack of a micros-USB and the plastic feel.

I don’t know, I have the lenovo Thinkpad and its stylus is good, was hoping to go for this one, but now I’m not so sure.

Being an artist this would have been the perfect tablet, but Sam kinda hyped it up then let us down a bit, then again we expected too much, think they charging that much because it’s technically a wacom tablet merged with Android, but for wanting to compete with apple so much Idk why Samsung doesn’t push the limit of their devices with hardware and software instead with prices.